• Boston Scientific received EU permission to market its Vercise Gevia deep brain stimulation system. The Gevia system features directional, constant-current stimulation with independent current control for each segment and is MRI conditional and rechargeable. It is not yet available in the U.S.

• Medtronic has released its Intellis platform for spinal cord stimulation. The Intellis platform features much longerdistance wireless programing than any prior Medtronic device, as well as improved recharging capabilities. The trial electrodes are also programmable in a wireless fashion.

• Nevro has initiated the SENZA-PDN study to evaluate the efficacy of high-dose stimulation to treat painful diabetic neuropathy. The original SENZA randomized controlled trial was selected as the top pain paper of 2016-2017 by Neurosurgery (Kapural et al., Neurosurg 2016).

• A relatively large (19 patients) randomized trial of pallidal stimulation for Tourette’s did not show a benefit at three months of blinded stimulation, which was the primary endpoint (Welter et al., Lancet Neurol 2017).

• Cerebellar deep brain stimulation may help with recovery after stroke. Preliminary human results presented by Baker et al. were described at the WSSFN meeting, and a larger trial is ongoing.

• For the first time, a fully implanted visual prosthetic was implanted in a human being with blindness. Phosphenes
were reliably produced using the Neuropace RNS device, as reported by Pouratian et al. at WSSFN.

• The medial forebrain bundle has emerged as a promising therapeutic target in major depression. Promising results from Europe have recently been published (Bewernick et al., Brain Stim 2017), and similar results were also reported by Fenoy et al. at WSSFN.

• A novel technique for noninvasive deep brain stimulation was demonstrated by a group at MIT and shown to affect neural activity (Grossman et al. Cell 2017). Multiple interfering electrical fields influenced spiking activity in rodents. Of course, many years of further work will be needed before any such device is trialed in humans.

Chuck Mikell, MD
Stony Brook, NY

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Contratulations to Joshua Aronson, MD, who received the 2014 Philip L. Gildenberg, MD, PhD Stereotactic and Functional Resident Award for his paper entitled "Striatal Simulation for enhancement of Recovery in a Rodent Traumatic Brain Injury Model."

WSSFN Ohye and Tsubokawa Awards

The WSSFN leadership bestowed two awards in honour of deceased professors Ohye and Tsubokawa during the WSSFN congress in 2013 in Tokyo. The awards went to Dr. Clement Hamano (Ohye award) and Dr. Itzhak Fried (Tsubokawa award). For more information
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Contratulations to Demiter Serletis, MD, who received the 2010 Philip L. Gildenberg, MD, PhD Stereotactic and Functional Resident Award for his paper entitled "Multifractal Complexity in Epileptiform Hippocampal Dynamics" at the CNS meeting in Philadelphia. Below is a picture of Dr. Serletis receiving the award from Dr. Gildenberg.

Congratulations to the following recipients of the ASSFN Resident and Fellow Awards at the 2008 meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia.